Chamblee Rose Garden, LeGrand Gardens, Tyler, Tx

Here are some pictures of the garden and grounds of The Goodman House. Enjoy!

 

The LeGrand Garden, Tyler, Texas.

http://www.cityoftyler.org

The Chamblee Rose Garden opened in March 2009 and is the flagship project for the LeGrand Gardens and is made possible by a generous contribution from Mark Chamblee in honor of his grandfather, Walter Kelly who served as a groundskeeper for the Goodman Museum at one time.

The funding for the development of this long-term master plan will be primarily from private donations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodman House, Tyler, Tx

We decided to take the tour of this lovely historic home in Tyler, Tx. The amount of original artifacts in the home was amazing.

The Goodman home was originally built in 1859 as a one-story, four-room house, and it was established on a 9-acre wooded parcel of land. It was known as Bonnie Castle by its first owner and occupant, Samuel Gallatin Smith. The young well-to-do bachelor and attorney sold the house in 1861 when the Civil War broke out. Mr. Smith became a Captain in the Confederacy and was later killed in battle in Louisiana. The next owner who bought the home in 1861 was Franklin N. Gary, a local school teacher. In 1866, a year after the Civil War ended, Dr. Samuel Adams Goodman, a retired country doctor from South Carolina, purchased the house from Mr. Gary. The following year in 1867, his son, Dr. William Jeffries Goodman, a local doctor and Civil War Major and Chief Surgeon, bought the house from his father and moved in with his new bride, Mary Priscilla Gaston. Her brother was William Henry Gaston, a founder of the city of Dallas, and one of Dallas' first millionaires. For 73 years and four generations, this prominent family made the house their family home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Azalea Southern Bells, Tyler, Tx

When you drive through the neighborhoods looking at the Azaleas in Tyler Texas they have these lovely girls in costume that are there to help guide you to the prettiest flower blooming.

Definite gorgeous Southern Bells.

 

 

Kilgore, Tx

After we went to the Oil Museum we drove around the town of Kilgore Texas and got some interesting photos.

The movie house.

The oil well rigging.

 

 

 

 

 

East Texas Oil Museum, Kilgore, Tx.

Since we were staying in Tyler TX we wanted to learn about this area and decided to go to the Oil Museum in Kilgore Tx. It was worth the drive and gave us a taste of the forces that formed these towns in east Texas.

Gotta love these handles for the entrance doors to the museum.

 

 

Welcome to the East Texas Oil Museum, located on the campus of Kilgore College in Kilgore, Texas. This fascinating museum houses the authentic re-creation of oil discovery and production in the early 1930s from the largest oil field inside U.S. boundaries. Here, visitors see the people, their towns, their personal habits, their tools and their pastimes – all colorfully depicted in dioramas, movies, sound presentations and actual antiques donated by East Texas citizens.

 

See how tall you stand beside the Texas-sized, hand-painted murals of early oil production and portraits of famous oil men inside the lobby. Journey back into the early 1930s to see how people lived. Refresh your memory to the lyrics of a deep-rooted gospel hymn in the church exhibit. Get a lesson in the history of local schools. Imagine how that antique car in the transportation exhibit ever got anywhere on those rough, rutted roads. Pause a moment in the ETOM Memorial Room to count the accomplishments of one of many persevering oil men, H.L. Hunt.

 

 

Then step across the city limits into Boomtown, USA, –a full scaletown full of stores, people, animals, and machinery depicting the lively activity of a town booming in oil.

Stop in at the general store and browse the shelves. Take the children to the drugstore for refreshment and have their picture taken with a wildcatter while mom and pop dance to vintage 1930’s big bands on the jukebox. Don't get your feet dirty on those rutted streets walking to the newspaper office for a Boomtown paper. As you pass the barbershop listen carefully for rumors of a new gusher, then pump your own gas outside the gas station. And make sure to go inside and see the movie on drilling an oil well.

 

 

Remember the afternoons at the movies? A visit to the theater brings back actual historical footage of the boom period while you sense a blowout gusher. Your visit is not complete without a trip to Boomtown's museum. Study the geographical exhibits and take the elevator ride to the center of the earth. Let your guides take you 3,800 feet below the earth’s surface to where oil deposits lie. It’s fun and informative.

http://www.easttexasoilmuseum.com/Pages/inside.html